Reading through stories reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago when I was working in shopping centre food court.
Was probably a pretty standard job where I started on the register but eventually learned all the back kitchen jobs as well since one of the guys from the back quit. The manager was also really dodgy e.g. rostering himself normal hours but rarely actually being at work. Which meant me and my mate who worked there pretty much ran the place since the manager almost never was.
The only thing the manager did was the bookkeeping in the morning once a week. He was meant to count the money in the till at the end of each day but since he wasn't there normally I would do that as well. So far the only person missing in this is the owner. He lived in a different part of the country so I had never met him or heard anything about him but there were cameras in the store so he finally caught onto what our manager was doing.
Suddenly one day this lady rocks up who has apparently been hired by the boss. It was obvious that she was hired to become the new manager even though she said that wasn't the case. I didn't mind since the old manager was terrible but the way it was done was really strange.
A couple days later the boss and his wife show up unannounced are asking some questions about the business and how it can be improved etc. That afternoon it was just me and the new lady working, two people is normally enough to close but as she was still new and spent half the time talking to the boss I had to do all the work. They also had the most scripted conversation in front of me where the boss was lamenting over how poorly the place was currently being run and he thinks this new lady was showing a lot of promise so she would become the manager.
Finally I am almost finished all the work, and the boss asks me if everything is all good with the register. Pretty random question but yeah nothing to note. He asks again adding if there was ever any money taken etc. At this point alarm bells are ringing but I know I haven't done anything so I just tell him obviously I have never taken anything or seen anything being taken but it's not like I'm watching over the register 24/7. He kept on repeating asking if I'm sure I hadn't taken anything and just said “Ok we'll talk about it at the end of your shift.”
It's already past my normal finish time cause of all the delays and now I have to finish the rest by myself while my mind is racing trying to figure out what he is talking about. I finally finish everything and tell him I'm done. He pulls out his phone as he has something to show me. He has heaps of saved videos from the camera above the register and he starts playing one of me sitting there counting the money at the end of the day. We watch the video and nothing interesting happens, he goes through a couple more trying to find the right one and still nothing.
Finally he finds the one he is looking for and its me sitting at the register, I've got my hand in the register for a little while fiddling around then I take my hand out and put it in my pocket. After I see this video it all makes sense to me, but it's just a simple misunderstanding. To be clear I obviously never stole anything and you can't see any money in my hand, I'm almost certain I was just playing around with some loose screws that when in there.
I tell him that I understand where he is coming from now but I didn't take anything. He counters by saying there is no point in denying when he has video proof. We go back and forth on this a couple times until he says that if I want to argue he will get the police involved. At this point I'm pretty much having a breakdown cause it feels like he has this evidence but I have nothing but my word.
Eventually he must realise that I'm not going to confess to anything so he tries to console me saying that he'll take my word for it, even though I can tell he doesn't believe me. At this point I'm hoping he just fires me which is surely the only logical conclusion to this. But instead he says that he can see I'm a good worker and he wants me to keep working for him. I was completely shocked. I said that I don't think that will work but I offered to keep working there until they got someone to replace me. He countered and said he just wanted me to keep working for him. He never said it specifically but I got the vibe that if I quit he would get the police involved so I reluctantly agreed.
I was pretty traumatised after this whole ordeal but for some reason asked his permission to talk about it with my parents. He didn't say no but thought it might be something that they didn't need to know about. Anyway I went home and told my parents everything. I then had to work the very next day, a Sunday, where I had to count the money at the end of the day since the other people didn't know how to. Was probably the most stressed I have ever been while working.
I was worried about the threat of legal action, which was ridiculous since I hadn't done anything, but I got in touch with a mutual contact who works as a layer. I explained the whole story to him and he was pretty easily able to put a bunch of holes in the accusation. Mainly there was never an amount of money that was declared missing. Looking back there probably wasn't any missing and I doubt they checked before accusing me. After this conversation I immediately wrote up my resignation and handed in my notice. Unsurprisingly no legal action was ever taken.
tldr: Boss accused me of stealing money from register based off of video where no money was visible. Then asked me to keep working for him.